A view from the balcony of the Exploratorium on Pi Day. Photo by the author.

Last Saturday we accompanied some friends of ours on a trip to the Exploratorium in San Francisco.  Many, many years ago the science show Nova featured this marvelous place in one of their programs, and if I recall “The Palace of Delights” was the name of that episode.  In all the intervening years I have heard no better name for this place.  For me it has been over twenty years since my last visit which is, quite frankly, a sin.  Possibly a crime.  This place has the ability to change a person’s life.  In my case this was literally true, for the last time I went there, I found a book titled The Independent Scholar’s Handbook by Ronald Gross about the joys of pursuing a life of the mind outside of academia.  Even though I was firmly ensconced (some might say, “indentured”) into academia, this book provided many priceless lessons that helped see me through my degree program at Berkeley, and shaped my philosophy of learning in a way that influenced much of my life’s work since graduation.

A view of friends, playing (with) one of the exhibits.  Photo by the author.

So, we went again, not just my wife Denise and I, but some other more scientifically literate friends. Here’s a good life tip: if you go someplace or to see something of significance, try to take along someone who can really tell you what it’s all about.

But I digress.  This trip was a good time for contemplating life-changing events because an unexpected layoff has thrust the contemplation of life changes down my throat. On this particular occasion, it was “Pi Day” (March 14… 3.14… get it?).  Yes, pie was served. There was a procession of people each carrying one of the digits of pi and other fun activities (Click here to see the web cast of all the fun).

I found myself thinking about how people learn, since I’ve been in the business of building a university for the last several years, but I also was just basking in the wonderful sense of being among people I understood: science types.  Even the lay people who were there just to play, to my mind they were being scientists in their way.  Actually, most human learning happens in this way.  We play with stuff, poke at it, prod it, ask questions and see what happens when we do… whatever.  A “school” tries to formalize, speed up, and enhance this process by planned methods that bypass all the mucking about and blind alleys, and for the most part it does a reasonably good job.

Denise contemplates an exhibit of comparative pendulums.  Photo by the author..

But the Exploratorium’s exhibits are not just interactive, they can be interacted with at different levels.  in some cases, quite advanced levels.  One of my favorites was an exhibit I had not see before that let you play with pendulums of different lengths and therefore different periods.  You can get a beginner’s buzz out of starting all of them at the same time, then watching how they all synch up again every thirty seconds.  Very cool, but then you can also get into harmonics and resonance, musical instruments, and so forth.  This display could probably demonstrate all kinds of wonderful things if you knew what to do, or managed to discover by playing with it long enough.

So here is a question: The Exploratorium is  considered to be part science museum, part art museum.  But to what extent is it a school?  I’m guessing that for all its ability to inspire curiosity and what they call in the trade “informal learning”, you probably would not be able to use a pile of admission receipts to establish your expertise as a scientist.  What would it take to change that?  How might one go about using the “natural” means of learning to build the kind of expertise one acquires in a school or apprenticeship?  One key might be in that word “museum.” A museum is just what it sounds like, at least originally. It is a place of the Muses, where one goes to become inspired.  But then once the ideas start to flow and curiosity it kindled, the real work begins.

Brine shrimp photographed by setting my digital camera to full macro, pressing it against the wall of the tank, and taking the picture at highest resolution. This allowed for considerable enlargement afterwards. Photo by the author.

I’ve been wondering for some time if there is not a better way to accomplish the goals of higher learning. Perhaps not by making every university in the land into a museum cum playground, but by making the adjustments that would unleash more of the power of informal learning. I think some of the problem lies in how we present one’s education: a major, a degree title, and maybe a cumulative GPA.  This is so inadequate that most people who graduate, especially in “academic” fields find themselves needing to create a Curriculum Vita that adds some detail. This is especially needful if they tend to wander outside their professed field of study, as does your Humble Correspondent.

Eric Hoffer once observed that everything is equidistant from an idea if your mind is keyed up.  Right now, I am relishing the idea of getting back to the sciences, as well as my original intellectual playgrounds in the humanities.  I think there is a way to remake how we learn, how we form learning groups and communities, and how we summarize that learning for the information of others.  With any luck, my next job will give me the opportunity to play in those fields and maybe, just maybe, some new ways to fire the mind.